Prologue

A Little Village

In the vale of a gentle hill, hidden by its shadow, there sat nestled a small village. Valeford was old – some said that its first stones were laid in the long days before the reigns of Kings or Queens, before people even knew to write. A river, beautiful, wide, slow, and blue, wove a lazy path through the vale, and Valeford sat upon its banks like a ruby atop an iron crown. The vale, named Fallow’s Vale after the hill that shielded it from evening sun and the blustering west winds, was also blessed with endless fields perfect for tilling. In those fields where no one had seeded a farm, and these fields were numerous, herds of sheep and cattle grazed. In the warmer months, these fields glowed the most brilliant gold, such that the Valeforders referred to them as the Golden Seas even when the grass was green and short. Overlooking this all was the old Castle which sat atop the Fallow, casting a weary eye over the vale below. The King who had built the Castle had been long forgotten, and the Valeforders had no use for its time-worn walls, or crumbling battlements. It was not abandoned, though – not fully. It was a nice walk up to it and down, and from its low peak – which, still, was the highest for miles around – one could spy the sandy beaches of the Frain Coast all the way to the South, and, on a clear day, the towers of the city of Caldwell could be seen beyond the Iron Forest to the North.

The Castle was romanticised, too, for Valeford was, chiefly, a village that birthed great storytellers.

Many bards were born here, such as Frink the Frivolous who sang in the mystical cities of the Great Northern Desert and who died there as a prince among men, or Gort the Gormless who wrote poems of peerless wit for which he was renowned up to the grand trading cities of the Purvatahi Coast. Of great note, too, were the town’s scribes – for it was among the only villages in all of South Frain that boasted of learned people.

It was, therefore, a matter of course that the Valeforders had concocted, recorded, sung, and in many ways besides, narrated a great number of stories about Fallow’s Castle. The children, imaginative and young, told of hauntings. A favourite among these stories was that of Queen Lysandia’s Emerald Hoard, though, of course, Queen Lysandia had lived and died far away from South Frain. The story went that her hoard of emeralds, which was supposed to have been so large as to make any who discovered it rich beyond even what magic could grant, had been hidden in the Castle’s dungeon. It was guarded, they said, by the spiteful spirit of Queen Lysandia herself and she would turn red the skin of any trespassers! The red skin would burn, cried the children, and trespassers shall be flayed alive!

Then, there came the tales told by the wiser folk – those who were grey in the hair, and of crooked back and aching joints. To them, the Castle was once an outpost of Banctics – the followers of the Church of Banc, the chief (and, indeed, only) God of Dunwenn. There was a chapel dedicated to Banc in the Castle, that was true enough, but many did not believe this to be evidence enough to classify the Castle as a sacred place.

Most stories and songs, loved by those of all ages and walks of life, told of the Dragon.

“Was there really a dragon that lived in the old castle, grandda?” a young boy, no older than 8, was sat at the feet of his aged grandfather. His grandfather, face half lit by the low glow of the embers of the fireplace, smiled.

“Of course there was, Alfie!” Geoffrey Goldfeather’s response was loud and booming, and young Alfie giggled.

Then, he screwed his face. “But how did a dragon fit in there?” He looked up, out of the window where the crumbling walls were set against the dying light of the spring day. “It’s so small! And dragons are as… large as mountains! Fred says that long ago the Greycaps used to be filled with dragons and that they made their home in the mountains by hollowing them out! Like… like fireflies in the grass!”

Geoffrey chuckled. “There were smaller dragons too, you know."

“And did a great hero kill the dragon, grandda? Is that why there’s no dragon there now?” Alfie had accepted that a small dragon could, indeed, live in the cramped confines of Fallow’s Castle.

“Is that what you imagine, Alf?” Geoffrey, wiry thin and balding with a thick grey moustache on his upper lip, now matched Alfie’s gaze. The sun had placed itself perfectly behind the Castle, such that it showed golden through the Castle’s cracks and windows. Alf nodded earnestly, and then belched, for he had just finished his dinner.

Geoffrey smiled to himself. “Do you want to hear the story, then, Alf? The true story? Of the terrifying dragon?”

“Yes!”

For a moment, Geoffrey was silent and watched as the sun dipped below the crest of the Fallow. “Tomorrow, there shall come a stranger! The greatest storyteller in these lands, much to my surprise,” Geoffrey said finally. “You shall know him at once – not least because he is a stranger, but because he is a foreigner! His skin is brown as clay, his eyes black as coal, his hair dark as jet.” Alfie’s eyes widened in wonder – he had never seen a man such as that before! “And he wears bright colours; reds, and greens, and oranges, and purples, and he wears them all at once! He speaks more languages than I can count, and in each his singing is without equal. It has been many years since he has visited, not since before you were born in fact,” Geoffrey was wistful. Alfie couldn’t know it, but his grandfather missed his old friend.

“But, grandda, that can’t be true! It can’t! Your singing is the best in all of Valeford!”

Geoffrey laughed. “True, but this man is from beyond our village, from beyond South Frain, from beyond even the furthest reaches of Dunwenn! And you will see him tomorrow, at the Ash, and you will accost him with questions.”

Alfie wouldn’t accost anyone! He was a polite young boy! Geoffrey laughed again at his grandson’s frown. “Oh, don’t worry! He’s quite used to be badgered by questions, and he’s a kind man to boot, so he answers them all. No one knows better, I promise you Alfie, the story of Fallow’s Castle.” Geoffrey pulled a pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco. “Better even, than old Mrs. Trickle, Banc bless her heart.”

This, too, Alfie found to be preposterous. Mrs. Trickle was Valeford’s Chronicler in Chief! No one could know the history better than her, he was convinced.

“He shall be here tomorrow, Alfie, my boy,” Geoffrey lit his pipe, relaxed more completely in his plush green arm chair, and began to puff. “And oh! You shall have answers, and stories, and songs as you’ve never had them before!” He closed his eyes. “Now, run along! Let me rest!”

A spring day in Dunwenn was a thing to behold. The ashes and oaks and yews were abloom, for though they sported no flowers, their golden-green leaves bloomed like pearls. The birds, magpies most prominent among them, sang from dawn till dusk and some even through the night. Soft winds blew – not too cold, not too warm – and carried with them the smell of pies, and cakes, and tea, and breads. The rivers, each of them a deep shade of blue, were not so chilly as to prohibit a swim and not so hot as to prohibit a drink. Up north, in the Uttar Raegis that Shayar had left behind those long years ago, these months were the months of summer. Shayar enjoyed the summer, for he had no qualm with the weather regardless of sun or rain or snow, but Dunwenn in the spring was quite unbeatable.

He breathed deeply as he reached the crest of The Fallow, for he had climbed up the steep windward side of it and was quite out of breath. It was a tricky journey up the hill’s windward side, even for experienced adventurers like Shayar, but it was quicker by far than taking the Iron Road (so named for it ran parallel to the Iron River). He reached out a hand and rested a minute, leaning on Fallow’s Castle. He smiled to himself, for he knew that he would have to do it again. He had told that story, his favourite story about dragons out of the many he knew, only on three occasions and on each occasion, he had been in Valeford. He reached for the flask on his belt, and drained the ice-cold water within. It was dawn still, and the sun’s light had barely begun to shine on Valeford where the hearth-fires and fireplaces could still be seen glowing behind curtained windows. The milkmen and smiths were about, as were the four bakers, but the rest of the village slept still.

So, Shayar sat, resting his back against the Castle’s east wall – the only wall that was still complete. The other walls, for the Castle was built in a square fashion with four bastions on the corners and one each in the centre, had fallen long ago. The north wall, in fact, had fallen precisely nine years ago for which Shayar was solely to blame. But the children had loved the trick at least, he thought to himself and grinned. Shayar went for another sip from his flask, but found it empty. He hadn’t the energy to walk down to the river, which was at least two miles away, and refill it. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused on the mist around him. Suddenly, parts of the mist turned to water as though they were dewdrops, and flowed through the air into his flask. Shayar grinned, and drained it again.

After he’d collected his breath, he started down the leeward side which was a gentler climb by far and thus criss-crossed by well-trod paths. Valeford was waking up now, for Shayar had waited till the dawn sun was high enough to cast long shadows, and Shayar revised the story as he walked.

They stared, but not rudely, and Shayar smiled at them. They smiled back, wiping their faces of surprise and awe, and greeted him in passing. Uttaris like Shayar often travelled as far south as the River Donga, and were a common sight in Caldwell which straddled the river – but further south, they were a rare sight. North of the Donga stretched the endless moors (Hearthmoor and Beremoor the largest among them) and the Great Green Steppe; flat-lands more suited to the desert dwellers of the Uttar Raegis or the arid plains of the Ghaerian Plateau. South and west of the Donga; a land of rolling hills, lush meadows, ancient woods, and gentle mountains, totally alien to Uttaris and Ghaerians. East of Caldwell was the great forest, which had many names but Shayar enjoyed calling it the Frinian Wolde – an old name, now out of use in Dunwenn for the language was forgotten, that translated roughly to the Maze-like Forest.

In this manner, offering smiles and exchanging greetings, the stranger walked down the High Street, making for the Old Ash at the centre. For some time, Shayar knew, Valeford was called Ashford after that great tree, which was taller and sturdier than many of the village’s buildings. Shayar also knew that the Ash was older than it had any right to be, for Ashford was a name given to the village centuries before Caldwell’s great walls were built. Sitting at the foot of the Ash, on a bench with a bottle of something fearsome in his hands, was Geoffrey and upon seeing him, Shayar beamed.

“Hello, old friend!” Geoffrey, who was older than Shayar remembered, smiled back. Of course, Shayar had been away for nine years, but the aging of mortals pained him still. “You’ve been keeping well, I trust?” Geoffrey hugged Shayar welcome, and then before Shayar could respond, “here!” he exclaimed, and pressed the bottle into Shayar’s hands.

“You know wine doesn’t work on me, Goldfeather,” he teased.

“It’s not wine, oh Saintly friend of mine! Uncork it and smell it!”

Shayar did so, and was pleased to discover that it was sweet milk; frothed cow’s milk, mixed with saffron from Ghaeria, and honey from South Frain. He raised it to his lips and had a few precious sips. “Oh, it tastes like old memories,” Shayar gave his friend a warm smile.

“I remember still, your teaching me how to rhyme with pentameter,” Geoffrey reminisced as the two friends sat down. “It was a rainy morning, I remember, and I was miserable. All I wanted was to have some sweet milk. I brought you your first bottle that day, I think.” Geoffrey scratched his head as he tried to recall the specifics of that memory from his youth.

“Oh, yes. Your mother was quite furious, because, if I recall correctly, you stole it!” They fell silent; a silence in which children appeared at the edges of the market square and pointed at Shayar, and exclaimed with wonder and awe before their minders hurried them inside. “I’m sorry to have missed her funeral, Geoffrey. I heard too late.” Geoffrey said nothing, and instead filled his cup with some of the sweet milk.

“She should have liked to have seen you once more, you know,” he remarked after a few sips.

“I do. I tried to come, but you know the way of the world.”

“Let me guess – you were rescuing another princess?” Geoffrey chuckled as he let his façade of seriousness drop, and Shayar sighed with relief.

“Something like that,” Shayar grinned.

They sat like that for some time, silent for the whole of it for company was conversation enough, and they drank the sweet milk.

“Are you ready, Saint of Stories?” Geoffrey finally spoke, half-teasing with the name, after the bottle had been drained. Shayar smiled inwardly, for he disliked the name but enjoyed Geoffrey’s attempts at teasing him.

“Yes, I am. And I told you, Geoffrey, I am Saint of Storytelling – not of stories themselves!” the distinction went unheard by the gaggle of approaching children, to whom Shayar turned and smiled.

On the first day, Shayar’s audience was children. This was nothing new – everywhere he went, the first audience was almost always children. If a village sent the children away, he would not stay even to tell the first story. Shayar sat at the foot of the Old Ash, its canopy casting a cool shade over the gathered crowd, with his legs crossed. He sat, also, on a rug of brilliant colours, and edges embroidered in silver and blue with scenes of drama and song. This was an odd sight to the children of Valeford, for in that part of the world they sat differently and their carpets were un-patterned, and so their awe of him only increased. As they settled down, Shayar smiled at them and readied his sitar. It was a string instrument, hollow and bulbous on one end, with a long neck – nearly as tall as him – tapering into a small knob the size of his fist. 4 strings, taught and tuned, were strung along it. This instrument, too, was an oddity for some but in a village of bards and minstrels it was a common enough sight that some of the children present knew well how to play it.

They sat there, as a magpie gave its cry and looked up at Shayar with beady, expectant eyes.

Then, he sang. At first, his tune had no words – he only sang notes. Ascending, then descending and then in a pattern, and then at random. All the while, he plucked a slow melody on the sitar. This went on for a few minutes, minutes in which the crowd swelled from dozens of children to nearly a hundred adults – a nearby baker too was drawn out of his shop, and there came Mrs. Trickle out of her offices! Each was entranced, completely and totally, by this strange man and his strange wordless song.

When he opened his eyes, for he sang with his eyes shut, and ceased his practice the crowd erupted in applause.

“You are too kind as always, Valeford,” Shayar was moved by their welcome. Geoffrey, sat at the rear of the children with their parents, stood up and shouted;

“Give us a story!”

It soon became a chant, and the children its most energetic chanters. After a few seconds of this, seconds which warmed Shayar’s heart, he held up his hands as if surrendering. “Very well,” he said with a smile on his face. Oh, his heart was full indeed! “I shall tell you great stories, from now till dusk, and tomorrow too I shall be here, and again, and the day after that, and the one after that! Until I have exhausted your appetite and can tell no more without collapsing myself!”

A cheer, raucous and inviting, went up from the crowd.

“Which do you want to hear first?”

Alfie, Geoffrey’s grandson was the first to respond and his response, too, became a chant; “tell us of the Dragon of Fallow’s Castle!”